The Engineer's Way of Quanhui, the author of "FPGA Timing Constraints and Analysis"

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The Engineer's Way of Quanhui, the author of "FPGA Timing Constraints and Analysis" [Copy link]

The Engineer's Way of Quanhui, the author of " FPGA Timing Constraints and Analysis"

A few days ago, I rewatched episodes 4 and 10 of The Last Dance , and was touched by two scenes. One scene was during the offseason after the Bulls were defeated by the "Bad Boys" Pistons. No one chose to take a vacation, and Jordan took the lead in preparing for the new season. They went to the gym and started very targeted physical training. In the following season, when they faced this group of guys who made a living by their bodies again, they swept them 4:0 and won their first championship in one fell swoop.

Another scene is when he was asked whether Jordan could continue to win the championship the following year after completing his second three consecutive championships in 1998. Although history did not give Jordan such an opportunity, and others might think that Jordan was already old at that time and the Bulls had already stumbled in the previous year's championship, and it would not be easy to win the championship again, Jordan's answer was still confident, "Skills are still important, because in addition to using the body, I have learned how to use mental strength."

For the first scene, many fans may just feel relieved after watching it. Jordan and the Bulls were bullied by the Pistons for many years, but they finally turned the tables, gave them a good lesson, and ushered in their own era. But I was impressed by Jordan's leadership qualities, which can be said to be a textbook example of leadership, and of course the unity and hard work of the Bulls players. They knew their weaknesses very well, and they made up for what they lacked. They were also very executive, and they did what they said, and they worked overtime.

In today's era of knowledge explosion, it is not easy to learn something. MOOC, Bilibili , Zhihu... It is easy to make a resolution and set a flag , but it is not easy to persist in learning, finish it, and learn it. Today, many young people spend a lot of time on TikTok, Toutiao and other boring audio and video texts. There is a saying in the Bible, "Redeem the time, because the days are evil." Many people complain that they don't have enough time and sleep. In fact, if you count carefully, it's just because a lot of time is swallowed up by those social media and becomes ineffective. Many engineers who have just worked for three or two years, who don't have families and children yet, have a lot of time to spend on learning, but they are also wasted in this way, which is a pity.

Think about when I was in my twenties, every weekend, I woke up at six o'clock and lay in bed thinking about how many things I wanted to learn and do today. So I completed them one by one. Today, in my "toolbox", there are many available skills stored, which can be put to use as long as they are honed a little. Now I often work from 995 to 995 and need to deal with many household chores on weekends. Although I am much busier than before, I can still squeeze out a lot of effective time to learn new knowledge and new skills. In the past year, I often squeezed out a quarter of an hour during the lunch break on weekdays, and in the few hours when I sent my children to exercise or practice calligraphy, I self-studied many new technology courses on Bilibili and MOOC. Of course, in the year before last, I also used some time on weekends to complete the recording of the " Verilog Coding and Learning" video tutorial and the manuscript of the book " FPGA Timing Constraints and Analysis", realizing my two biggest wishes in recent years. That is, to help FPGA beginners get started in the simplest way possible ; to compile the most theoretical timing knowledge points in FPGA into a book to fill the gap in domestic reference books in this area. I am not very idle to do these things, but I have always stayed away from spiritual opium such as music , music , blogs , etc., and made full use of my fragmented time to do more meaningful things, that's all.

Sometimes I also hear some engineers in the workplace complain that they work too much overtime and have no time to study. It is better to give me time to study during work. In my opinion, this is a misunderstanding. Work is not for learning, but the purpose of learning is to do a better job. In high-intensity work, many engineers often use this as an excuse to give up their spare time learning. But at work, some new knowledge and new skills are often needed. What should I do? If it were me, even if I was busy and tired at work, I would still have to squeeze time to study in my spare time. Moreover, I should not only learn what I will use immediately, but also learn those knowledge that I will not use for the time being, but can foresee that it will be useful soon. Otherwise, you will always be in a state of passive learning, which will make you exhausted. Another point is that the ultimate goal of learning must be to do a better job, and you must never sacrifice the work at hand for learning. Engineers in the workplace must put their work in the first place, devote themselves to work, specialize in their own work at hand, and even sacrifice their spare time for targeted learning.

Once, I needed to do some continuous optimization for a certain technical point, and I could only skim through the papers related to this technical point during the tight working hours. But this matter seemed quite urgent, and it happened to be the holiday, so I stopped my original spare-time study plan, and spent about 8 hours (a little bit every day) translating the entire paper during the 3- day holiday. This process forced me to repeatedly ponder the content of the paper. Although it was painful and inefficient, after this holiday, I had accumulated a lot of new and specific ideas, and I was able to quickly verify these ideas when I returned to work. After this time, I can say that I have fully mastered the relevant technical points.

Many engineers have another big problem, which is that they can't persist and focus. This is fatal. There is a sentence in the Bible, "Practice these things diligently and devote yourself to them", which talks about persistence and focus in doing things. The Bulls mentioned above lost the game, and started training for the new season the next day (if I remember correctly). This is execution. People need to live in the present and don't always put things off until tomorrow. If you decide to do something or want to learn something, you might as well start today. No matter how busy you are every day, you must always take some time to continue. Over time, you will definitely be able to complete it.

As for the second act, although I watched "The Last Dance" two years ago, I didn't have much feeling about it. But after a year and a half, I think back to the past year, when I was about the same age as Jordan at 35 , I also experienced a huge skill transformation. When I think of Jordan's words "Technique is still important, because in addition to using the body, I have learned how to use mental strength", I can resonate with it (looking up to Jordan).

Domestic engineers often have a misunderstanding that when they have reached a certain level of technical skills, they must transform into management to be considered successful. I have always scoffed at this. If you like to do technology and can maintain that passion and love, why not keep going? The competitive level of athletes depends largely on their physical condition. The older they are, the greater the limitations of their technical abilities will be on their bodies, and the role that mental strength can play will become less and less. The 35 -year-old Jordan can boast of winning another three consecutive championships, but the 50- year-old Jordan can forget about it. Engineers are not athletes, so of course it is another matter to do highly repetitive, low-tech technical positions. I believe that many technical positions can become easier and more outstanding with the passage of time and experience. Even in the face of new fields and applications, they will become more and more comfortable. If an engineer can take root deeply in the field he is engaged in and has 10,000 hours of effective training (Daniel Coyle's "10,000-Hour Rule"), by the age of 35 to 50 , he will definitely be in the stage where his physical strength and experience are the most efficient. If this stage is coupled with the "spiritual power" of Mr. Jordan, he will definitely be a treasure wherever he goes.

Dr. Wu Jun mentioned in many of his books that engineers were divided into five levels based on Landau's method. The principles of classification are roughly as follows.

Level 5: Able to solve problems independently and complete engineering work.

Level 4: Able to guide and lead others to accomplish more impactful work.

Level 3: Able to independently design and implement products and achieve success in the market.

Level 2: Able to design and implement products that others cannot make, which means that his role is difficult to replace.

Level 1: Create an industry.

You can identify yourself, but don't be too confident. In my opinion, many junior engineers think they can be considered level 5, but the "completion of engineering work" mentioned in level 5 engineers is still very different for different people. If you don't do it carefully, sometimes even the simplest work may not be done well.

The difference between engineers at each level is not just a 30% or 20% difference like their salary. According to Dr. Wu Jun, their output may be 10 times different. After decades of working in the workplace, from my observation, I completely agree with this view. When engineers are angry about bonuses or salary increases, they should first review their own cultivation and technical capabilities. Don't be jealous of others, but focus more on how to improve yourself. I always believe that "gold will shine wherever it is", and the Bible also says that "a city set on a hill cannot be hidden". If people don't think you are gold, it's because you are not gold, so please don't just flatter yourself.

Having said so much, everyone must understand Jordan's words in a balanced way: "Technique is still important, because in addition to using the body, I have learned how to use mental strength." Remember, mental strength must be based on technical ability to be effective. Practice hard when you are young, and your mental strength will be a plus when you are in your 40s .

Today, I gradually understand my dream when I was young, which is to be the best version of myself, to do what I do with the greatest enthusiasm and love, which can be very complex and highly technical, or very simple and easy to do. It doesn't matter how the thing itself is, the key is that the product I am making is meaningful, and it gives me the opportunity to constantly polish and refine it, and use the simplest way possible, with minimal hardware or software consumption, to make the best performance possible (just like the programming philosophy of the top algorithm programmer Gonard Knuth ). In other words, it is to be able to polish the product to the extreme as much as possible. Sometimes I may ponder, draw, and ponder formulas; sometimes I will constantly tune and test repeatedly... In any case, I will enjoy this painful and happy process, and I will also enjoy the final performance improvement even if it is only a little bit. In short, making better products, great products, this should be the lifelong pursuit of engineers.

As the holidays are approaching, it is recommended that engineers read more books. It is also necessary to relax and adjust between studies.

Chicken soup books, I recommend you to read Dr. Wu Jun's two books, "Pattern" and "Attitude". Dr. Wu Jun speaks from his own experience, which is very down-to-earth. Every argument and insight in the book is practical for engineers' daily study, work and life. And "The Wisdom of Balance" by then Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is also a good book. If you can practice these books, it will be of great benefit to improve engineers' self-cultivation.

For popular science books, I recommend "The Beauty of Algorithms", "The Beauty of Mathematics", "General Lectures in Mathematics", and "Everything is Number". A lot of easy-to-understand mathematics and algorithm knowledge in these books contains great wisdom. For the history of science and technology, I recommend "A Century of Silicon Valley", "A Brief History of Information", and "The Wave at the Top". They are all large-scale science and technology history books. The development of those big companies has ups and downs, and is very exciting.

Finally, I would like to recommend the book " FPGA Timing Constraints and Analysis" by Quanyou , hoping that it can help the majority of FPGA learners and engineers better master the methods of timing constraints and analysis. This book is currently available on e-commerce platforms such as Dangdang and JD.com.

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